"Southern Roadfood Wisdom"

Only a Southerner knows the difference between a hissie fit and a conniption fit, and that you don't "HAVE" them, you "PITCH" them.

Only a Southerner knows how many fish, collard greens, turnip greens, peas, beans, etc., make up "a mess."

Only a Southerner can show or point out to you the general direction of "yonder."

Only a Southerner knows exactly how long "directly" is - as in: "Going to town, be back directly."

Even Southern babies know that "Gimme some sugar" is not a request for the white, granular sweet substance that sits in a pretty little bowl in the middle of the table.

All Southerners know exactly when "by and by" is. They might not use the term, but they know the concept well.

Only a Southerner knows instinctively that the best gesture of solace for a neighbor who's got trouble is a plate of hot fried chicken and a big bowl of cold potato salad. If the neighbor's trouble is a real crisis, they also know to add a large banana puddin!

Only Southerners grow up knowing the difference between "right near" and "a right far piece." They also know that "just down the road" can be 1 mile or 20.

Only a Southerner, both knows and understands, the difference between a redneck, a good ol' boy, and po' white trash.

No true Southerner would ever assume that the car with the flashing turn signal is actually going to make a turn.

A Southerner knows that "fixin" can be used as a noun, a verb, or an adverb.

Only Southerners make friends while standing in lines. We don't do "queues," we do "lines"; and when we're "in line," we talk to everybody!

Put 100 Southerners in a room and half of them will discover they're related, even if only by marriage.

In the South, 'y'all' is singular....'all y'all" is plural.

Southerners know grits come from corn and how to eat them.

Every Southerner knows tomatoes with eggs, bacon, grits, and coffee are perfectly wonderful; that red eye gravy is also a breakfast food; and that fried green tomatoes are not a breakfast food.

When you hear someone say, "Well, I caught myself lookin'," you know you are in the presence of a genuine Southerner!

Only true Southerners say "sweet tea" and "sweet milk." Sweet tea indicates the need for sugar and lots of it -- we do not like our tea unsweetened. "Sweet milk" means you don't want buttermilk.

And a true Southerner knows you don't scream obscenities at little old ladies who drive 30 MPH on the freeway. You just say,"Bless her heart"and go your own way.

To those of you who are still a little embarrassed by your Southerness: Take two tent revivals and a dose of sausage gravy and call me in the morning. Bless your heart!

And to those of you who are still having a hard time understanding all this Southern stuff, bless your hearts, I hear they are fixin' to have classes on Southernness as a second language!

And for those that are not from the South but have lived here for a long time, all y'all need a sign to hang on y'alls front porch that reads "I ain't from the South, but I got here as fast as I could."

Bless your hearts, y'all have a blessed day.

I'm yankee born, but married to a "Southern" belle, but I thought y'all might chuckle at this.

How fun! And most of it is very true. I have long held that the reason people make fun of Southerners is because they are so jealous. We love our families, even when we don't like them. We take care of our neighbors. We stand up for what we believe and we believe we are right. Usually we are. Generally our principles are based on the constitution, the bill of rights and the Bible. I am proud to be a southerner!

I saw a similar list, but yours left out "big ol'". Within three weeks of me moving south I had picked up "y'all" and "big ol'" and used them regularly in conversation. My family thinks it's hilarious when I "talk southern." Never mind that I've lived in the south a quarter of my life ...

I still remember the day I learned that the whole country didn't say "y'all"! We had some fancy Chicago marching band experts shipped in for band camp. I couldn't imagine what else one might say, so I asked. I laughed like crazy when they replied "you guys". Come on!?!!

I still remember the day I learned that the whole country didn't say "y'all"! We had some fancy Chicago marching band experts shipped in for band camp. I couldn't imagine what else one might say, so I asked. I laughed like crazy when they replied "you guys". Come on!?!!

A sweetened, non-alcoholic carbonated beverage in Georgia is a Coke ("I'll have a Coke", "what kind?" "Orange")elsewhere in the South, it is generally a soda.

I've been transplanted up here to MI for 11 years, and it's STILL hard for me to say "POP" when I mean "COKE" and everyone still laughs at me for saying y'all and fixin' to. Oh well, they sure like it when I cook for them...

A sweetened, non-alcoholic carbonated beverage in Georgia is a Coke ("I'll have a Coke", "what kind?" "Orange")elsewhere in the South, it is generally a soda.

I've been transplanted up here to MI for 11 years, and it's STILL hard for me to say "POP" when I mean "COKE" and everyone still laughs at me for saying y'all and fixin' to. Oh well, they sure like it when I cook for them...

Just quote Flo from the tv show "Alice" and tell them, "Kiss my grits."

"Runnin the roads" cruising in a car"Flairs" are flowers"parasol" is a power saw ( chain saw)"loaferin" favorite passtime, can be anything"don't care to help you" means I'd be willing to help you"Tarred" is tired"Baccer" tobacco"mater" tomatoe"tater" potato"soup Beans" pinto beans"I've got sugar" I have diabetes"give me sugar" give me a kiss"sick Headache" migrane"proud" happy - as in proud to meet you

As my grandaddy would say "If y'all don't behave now, I'm fixin to woop your little scranny @#*", and my granny use to tell us to go get a poke sack and pick a mess of greens. Me and my cousins would say "Lets hightail it out of here"We didn't go to a beauty shop or hair stylist, we went to a Beauty Parlor."They live over yonder" could be across the street or 10 miles down the road.And all babies were "as cute as a little tanyard dog".You can't beat Southern hospitality and Southern food.Greetings from Huntsville, AL and Y'ALL COME BACK NOW YA HEAR

I really have to take exception to some of this. I have lived in Mississippi("The Most Southern Place on Earth") for over half a century and some of what you are attributing to southern is actually redneck and under-educated. Many of our word usagees are a bit strange (fixin' to, over yonder, Coke, sweet milk, to name a very few) but the mispronounciations (Terbaccy, maters, taters ) are generally Yankee inventions. I don't know anyone who talks like that.

mbrookes, you hit the nail on the head with your remark about education. I was born in Huntsville, AL, raised in Warner Robins, GA, went to school in Atlanta, and no one can guess where I'm from because I don't have a southern accent. In general, the more educated memebers of my extended family don't either, and the less educated ones do. It is really amazing, because some of these people are siblings!

I do say "fixin' to", "y'all", and "Coke" almost every day and I enjoyed the Wisdom listed at the beginning of this thread.

"I do say "fixin' to", "y'all", and "Coke"" almost every day and I enjoyed the Wisdom listed at the beginning of this thread.

I also am a raised in the south gal at least off an on until I was 16 then we moved here permanently. I have lived in England, France, Idaho, Texas, Georgia, New York (etc.) and have been proud of my southern heratige. Therefore, I can poke fun at myself. Note that I say myself, and I would certainly not poke fun at others.

I don' know how one could not say "fixing to, or y'all" without a Southern accent. They seem to go hand in hand.

I don't think that anybody could have been more Southern than my grandmother or grandfather (both dirt poor from Southern TN and came to Huntsville via a wagon and worked in cotton mills most of their lives, but I could have not loved them more if they were "gentry".

One thing about Southern people is that we have thick hides and can laugh along with other, but we don't take to people laughing at us.

"Wish I had my money back and had stayed in tha wagon yard, them city boys are slick as lard", an old song my PawPaw used to sing me. Of coarse, he had to explain to me what a "wagon yard" was. I had a wagon that was in tha yard but????. You would also have to explain to Kids today what lard is. I know, I've done it.joe

I really have to take exception to some of this. I have lived in Mississippi("The Most Southern Place on Earth") for over half a century and some of what you are attributing to southern is actually redneck and under-educated. Many of our word usagees are a bit strange (fixin' to, over yonder, Coke, sweet milk, to name a very few) but the mispronounciations (Terbaccy, maters, taters ) are generally Yankee inventions. I don't know anyone who talks like that.

This may be true to some degree I suppose. I hung out with the old timers when I was young(they knew everything I wanted to know) whenever I could. I picked up a lot of my "southernisms" through them I think. Much to the dismay of my catholic orphange raised mama. I can't count how many times I ran away "home"! At least in my parts of Tenn. and Ky. diggin' taters, and pickin maters are most certainly the lexicon of parts of the south. I myself have cut and hung much 'backy" or 'backer(not "ter"backy, thats a cowboy movie thing I think)). Uneducated, maybe...I'm certainly not(educated that is). These folk may not have gone to prep school but they sure can be persuasively understood. I know more than a few that may struggle beyond signing their name but they know more stuff than all the CEO's on the Fortune 500. The cousin who taught me the best way to skin a catfish and to be a head hunter (arrow's that is) is way more impressive to me than the dude that can quote Byron. I prefer news I can use. I guess it's in the eye of the beholder. I love it when someone underestimates a southerner because of an accent and a curious use of vocabulary. Southern speak is rich in history and certainly has flavor. It economises the language. Which is ironic in that we sure do like to vocalise and expound upon any subject. Though there are the quite ones[|)] and we all know to watch out for them crazy hillbilly's.Here's one that drives mama nuts... "If'nyaonto" as in "We can go fishin' later if'nya onto." I apologize for any translatory spelling error's.

I met a woman on my latest plane-ride who said she was from Shreveport, LA. I said, "where are you from originally?" (being from DC, where hardly anyone is actually from DC, and noticing that she was void of a southern accent, I figured this was a good question) She said, "I've lived in Shreveport my whole life." I said, " what happended to your accent?"She said, "I got rid of it. When I went to college in Portland, I realized that my accent lowered my IQ a hundred points in the eyes of others. So, I got rid of it. It's been a blessing."

I think some southern accents are charming, others are a little hill billy. I think it depends upon the grammar.

I didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings. I was making an observation about my own dear family. The funniest accent story I have is between me and my cousin, Tracy. Tracy was born in Alamagordo, NM, raised in Dayton, OH and went to school in NC. (She has a Master's in speech therapy) Everyone thinks she is the southern raised one, and I'm the northern raised one! She swears that she can't practice speech therapy anywhere but NC, because no one else would understand her clients So it takes all kinds. I love them all and nothing sounds more "right" to me than a slow drawl!

I'll keep my Texas drawl and anyone who dosen't like it can kik my #%&. :~) Oh, who did that song "if that ain't country... I'll kik ur #%&"?? I already know the answer, of coarse. Clue... heee's from Texas. Joe

Speech patterns and accents are really fascinating. In Mississippi, you can, by listening, tell if a person is from the NE hills, the coast, The Delta or central state. I'm sure it's that way in many states.Also, the South isn't all one place, even if we did try to seceed together. The "north South" (Virginia, NC,) is very different from the west South (Texas, western Arkansas). Mississippi and Alabama are probably the southest South, even though cosmopolitan parts af Florida are farther south geographically.Point is, all of us have more in common than we do separating us. That goes for the whole country. The more we look ar our likenesses rather than our differences, the stronger our nation will be.

Well said Mrbrookes! I got an A on an anthrapolagy coarse by sayin somethin kinda like that, but not put as well. It's our differences that make things fun. If only we could convince the rest of the word of that!

That said, I have spent enough time playing poker in Tunica County. Miss. that I can come close to doing like you said Mrbrookes. I love the way folks talk there!!!Joe

Hailing from the foothills of North Carolina, I'm "double dipped" in accents by being both a southerner and a hillbilly. I can speak with the best of them, and have many times made presentations/talks to audiences of several hundred (usually withouth notes), but I do love to get in a gathering of "hoitie toitie" snobs and pull out my most pronounced southern hillbilly drawl and down home expressions--especially when I'm in control or the central emcee. It "does my soul good"! A man I admired greatly, Dr. Jay Robinson from Bandana, North Carolina (just outside of Spruce Pine) was one of the premier educators in North Carolina, finishing his long career as superintendent of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system during turbulent times and then chancellor's liason for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He never lost his heavy, semi nasal mountain drawl although he was one of the most brilliant men I have ever met. He once told me that he continued to "talk slow so I can think while I talk". Maybe more of us should try that. I know I should do it more.

And another who wasn't bad was another old North Carolina hillbilly who happened to be a real national treasure--Harvard graduate Senator Sam Ervin of watergate fame.

I didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings. I was making an observation about my own dear family. The funniest accent story I have is between me and my cousin, Tracy. Tracy was born in Alamagordo, NM, raised in Dayton, OH and went to school in NC. (She has a Master's in speech therapy) Everyone thinks she is the southern raised one, and I'm the northern raised one! She swears that she can't practice speech therapy anywhere but NC, because no one else would understand her clients So it takes all kinds. I love them all and nothing sounds more "right" to me than a slow drawl!

Alice, apologetic diva

I had a similar experience to your cousin. I grew up in Maryland, just outside DC and thought myself accentless although I can definitely pick up an accent when I listen to people from that area now--even my relatives. Still I went away to school and roomed with a guy from Brooklyn. I apparently picked up enough of the Brooklynese that for several years thereafter people would ask me if I was from Queens because they knew it wasn't quite Brooklyn but it had to be somewhere in New Yawk.

But then I moved on to North Carolina and after 4 years of talking to mostly poorer, rural North Carolinians I definitely had a drawl.

Now, after living in the far west for several decades, I find that my accent adapts. I drawl when in the south, a revert to the Brooklynese when in the northeast.

quote:

Originally posted by mbrookesSpeech patterns and accents are really fascinating. In Mississippi, you can, by listening, tell if a person is from the NE hills, the coast, The Delta or central state. I'm sure it's that way in many states.

Many years ago there was a fascinating 10-hour series on PBS by Robert MacNiel called "The Story of English" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0198245/ ). I taped it off the tube with my first-generation VCR and have watched the less-than perfect recording many times. I'd love to see a reasonably priced, cleaned up version come out on DVD because it was/is a wonderful program about speech patterns, language use and accents. Among the fascinating discussions are the Elizabethan English spoken by residents of Tangier Island in Chesapeake Bay until very recent times (because the place was settled in the 1600's and has been pretty isolated since) and the Gullah speach of the Georgia Sea Islands. One program talked about the residual "Scottishness" of the Southern "hillbillies" whose ancestors were, for the most part, Scotts-Irish immigrants. And there's so much more. It's a great series if you feel like buying it or get a xchance to see it somewhere.